It’s no secret that RIM is looking to license their upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS. When Thorsten Heins took over the role of CEO he also arranged J.P. Morgan Securities and RBC Capital Markets to give a “strategic review” of the company. Their early findings indicated that they were prepared to leverage “the BlackBerry platform through partnerships, licensing opportunities and strategic business model alternatives.”
Over the past few months there has been several rumours of potential manufacturers who would step up and invest or licence BB10, but all have been doused. The latest was from Samsung, earlier it was Microsoft. Today, a new report from Bloomberg, suggests that BlackBerry 10 is in “the final stages of testing” and that they are almost ready to license it to others. Who those others are is a mystery, but the article implied that RIM is looking outside of the mobile space.
Heins – who’s apparently already rocking a BB10 phone – stated that “QNX is already licensed across the automotive sector — we could do that with BB10 if we chose to. The platform can be licensed. Smartphones are a part of our business, but we’re looking way beyond this.”
QNX, which the BB10 OS is based on, is already powering the BlackBerry PlayBook, used in cars (like this Porche), nuclear plants and military drones. It will be interesting to see if RIM licenses out BlackBerry 10 OS before they launch their BB 10 device early Q1 2013.
Heins also said “We’re here to win. We’re not here to fight for third or fourth place.”
Source: Bloomberg
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